Raised on classical music with intensive instrumental education, my introduction to contemporary music was the Kronos String Quartet album Winter was hard (1988). This album was hugely influential on my choice of career path and early compositions. Since then, my work as a contemporary music cellist has had a profound impact on my writing style. The composers with whom I have had the longest and most productive, performance-based relationships are David Chisholm, David Young and James Hullick. Chisholm, Young and Hullick write with dense textures in conceptual scores with highly individual developmental practices, score presentation and notation systems, and approaches to subject matter which have inspired many of my works. Chisholm and Young’s rhythmic control, attention to expressive detail, and methods of manipulating the traditional notation system taught me how to present less conventional musical aims and theatrical direction using conventional means.
Image Published RealTimeMagazine. Photographer Caerwen Martin
Hullick’s visually artistic methods of composition liberated me from my self-imposed expectations of adhering to any pre-existing or established approaches. This removal of inhibition allowed me to be open to unconventional ideas and working methods. Hullick’s grand designs taught me that visual art and conceptual notation systems can be the driver for the compositional outcome, an idea I have integrated into scores such as KING SET for solo prepared timpani (2020).
Young expressly encouraged me towards graphic scores: developing my auditory imagination and notation strategies to facilitate the transference of musical and theoretical ideas from mind to the page, through visual art-based practices including sketches, painting and photography. This was liberating for my compositional aims and outcomes as the restrictions of western theory and the conventional notation system were lifted.
Hullick, Chisholm and Young taught me that the underlying message of the work was key to the existential purpose of the composition. To this day, my experiences of working with these composers increasingly impact my own musical outcomes, even though I no longer perform their music. Other musical influences include Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Shostakovich, Rimsky-Korsakov, John Dowland, and traditional hymns.
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